


no more second chances

by haru_senji



Series: Cadowly's Songfic December [14]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, F/M, How Do I Tag This, M/M, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:15:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29987556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haru_senji/pseuds/haru_senji
Summary: he goes to your wedding.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Reader
Series: Cadowly's Songfic December [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2050188
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17





	no more second chances

**Author's Note:**

> i will probably come back to this at some point in the future and slap myself but hey at least i’m writing again dabs. p.s. thank you so much nikki @sunmoonstarsrain for coming up with the breakup reason i’ve only met you for like two weeks and i love you so much already.
> 
> _原来这就是曲终人散的寂寞，我还想等你什么_ \- [曲终人散](https://open.spotify.com/track/2mExYl9GHyceOEvBoL4nzb?si=a5c879a7f4fd4ffb)

He thought there’d be a second chance. 

He thought that, somehow, you’d see how sorry he was, and it would be you and him against the world, just like before. Just like how it should be. How it should have been. He wished upon a single star, barely visible as it competed with the city’s harsh lights; he waited for every 11:11 p.m., the cold numbers mocking his childishness.

He thought there’d be a second chance. The wedding invitation on his table tells him otherwise. 

(Perhaps the star wasn’t even a star. Perhaps it isn’t a messenger to the gods, but rather, for the scientists. You used to tell him that only the blinking ones are stars; the others are satellites. The green minutes on the digital clock switch to 12.) 

It’s white (your favourite colour), embroidered with roses (your favourite flower) and your familiar scrawl reads “to my dearest friend: Miya Atsumu” (you’d always valued letters over emails, his handwritten sticky notes over the hearts in text messages). 

“Hey, ‘Tsumu, the - why the hell do you look like you’re about to faint?” 

Osamu’s eyes land on the invitation, and on his twin’s heart next to it, dangerously close to breaking into a million unfixable pieces. Again. 

“Oh.”

Atsumu stands up, the sound of the chair’s legs scraping on the floor muted. He meets his twin at the bedroom door, opening his mouth to say something, _anything_. 

“I’m - I’m going for a run,” he chokes out, even though it’s 3 p.m. with a risk of heatstroke, even though his tears are thinly veiled by his fake strength. He isn’t risking Osamu laughing at him, not now. He doesn’t, and Atsumu runs out the door, onto the road, away from your hand-drawn flowers and the fact that ‘friend’ and ‘Atsumu’ are in the same sentence. 

—

“Oh, that bouquet looks so pretty!” You stop short in front of the florist’s, gleaming eyes peering at the arrangement of florals on display. 

Atsumu tugs at your hand. “Nuh-uh, we’re gonna be late for the movie.” 

“But it’s only going to take a while -”

“Come _on_.”

—

“Do you have practice this Saturday?” 

“No, but I have a photoshoot.” 

You sigh as you massage his shoulders. “You’re tired, aren’t you? You can stop taking so many offers, you know. It’s not like we’re short on money. Your wellbeing is worth more than popularity and wealth.” 

He huffs, eyes not leaving the phone screen. “But the others on the team have way more contracts than me!” 

You roll your eyes. “You’re a newbie, ‘Tsumu, you don’t have to be at the top when you’re so new to a field. Professional volleyball is different from high school volleyball, you know. You can’t leap up the steps to success.” 

He’s gone early the next morning, and comes back only to collapse on the sofa. The next week you get a magazine with him and a female model on the cover. 

—

“Atsumu.” 

“Hmm?”

“… Aren’t you forgetting something?” 

“Is it important? If it’s not, I really want to rest, babe, I’m really tired. We worked SO hard, and we still lost.”

“… No, it’s not important. You’ll get them next time, I know you will! Just remember not to strain yourself too hard.” 

You don’t read your friends’ happy birthday messages.

—

Atsumu cages everything in his life in his fist. It came with growing up with uncertainty as his friend before he even knew what the word meant. Love doesn’t mean his parents will stay together. Hard work doesn’t mean he’ll win nationals. Telling the truth doesn’t mean that people will like you. Even though everyone is chanting ‘don’t lie’, they hiss and scratch when you poke them with the truth. 

One thing he learnt is that there’s always someone more. Someone with more love than his parents did. Someone who worked harder than he did. Someone who told so much truth that they stripped everyone clean to the bone and were hated or loved. Atsumu doesn’t half-ass things. He’s a setter, and a setter sets. He’s Atsumu, and he will be Atsumu. 

The thing with having everything planned out is that you tend to miss things at the sides. When you focus the camera lenses on the sun the trees at the sides blur out. When he focuses on his world he forgets that you’re a part of it too.

He’s been giving all his life. Giving his all to volleyball, the people around him (whether the results were negative or positive). He gives and gives and now he finally has a chance to take, and he _takes_.

—

“I’m breaking up with you, Atsumu.” 

“W-What? Wh- no, wait, Y/N, why -”

“Atsumu. A relationship is a two-way thing. I didn’t choose to be your significant other for you to treat me like this. A relationship is a give-and-take thing. It’s balanced. You take and take and there’s nothing left for me to give anymore. The worst thing is I’m walking off empty-handed.”

—

He doesn’t need to buy suits for the wedding. He has plenty, for events, for dates with you. He wears the one he bought for a date, but you broke up with him before he had a chance to wear it. 

—

He still loves you, you know that? So he goes to the wedding feeling like he’s going to a funeral. (A funeral for your feelings for him, probably.)

It’s painful, seeing the venue furnished exactly how you’d gushed to him about before. Piano tunes chime in the air, and he snaps out of his self-pity. He can’t hear the wedding vows being exchanged, can’t see anything past the glaring yellow lights above him and the rim of his wine glass, can’t think of anything except you, in the arms of someone who wasn’t him. Applause sounds as you kiss your new spouse. He can’t take another look at you. It _hurts_.

_He’s not eating_ , you notice as you weave between the round tables, clinking glasses and bestowing smiles. _He’s drunk_. 

You know, of course you do. You always know when he’s drunk, when his eyes blur into a pool of gold, his movements less sharp, his smile more endearing. You always know when he’s drunk, because he’d seek you out with a lopsided grin and kiss both your cheeks then your lips. But that was before. He can’t do that now. 

“Congratulations, y/n,” he raises his glass to you as you and your partner (he doesn’t want to know their name, he doesn’t need to, he doesn’t want to). 

_That should have been me_ , he rages, his swimming head almost letting his tongue slip. The unsaid words travel down his throat and claw feverishly at his chest.

“Thank you, Atsumu!” you grin, tapping the edge of your glass with his. Your hand wobbles, just the slightest. He knows, of course he does. He always knows when you’re faking a smile, when the corners of your lips don’t reach a certain degree, when your eyes don’t disappear in a smile. 

He thinks of how he’d always try to kiss you when he’s drunk. You struggle to keep your smile in place. 

You move on to the next table, arm looped through your partner’s. The music drips into the heartbreak-coloured liquid and Atsumu tips his glass back, swallowing everything in a gulp. He doesn’t see you looking back at him as he beckons to the waiter for another cup. 

The music ends. He doesn’t dance. You do. You’ve always loved dancing, he knows. He knows because he’s never had time to dance with you. Your partner twirls you and you’re like a bird set free, heart soaring and feet leaping. 

He doesn’t dance. Maybe he should have before you broke up with him. 

The rest of the event was spent folding and refolding his napkin, tongue curling around drop after drop of the heavy wine. After you and your partner’s farewell speech, he’s the first to stand up and head for the door. 

“Atsumu!” You stop him as he leaves, hovering among the dispersing crowd like a lost ghost. “… Thank you for coming. I didn’t think you would.”

He stops at your voice, hands in his pockets, but doesn’t turn back. His next words are so quiet you almost don’t hear it as they snag on the sleeves of the departing guests.

“I hope they love you, Y/N.”

Your hands curl into fists. “… of course they do.” _‘Unlike you’_ hangs unspoken between you. “I wouldn’t have married them otherwise.”

He turns around, and you see his eyes rimmed with regret. 

“I hope they give you roses every day; order a bouquet and send it to where you work so you can show everyone your spouse loves you to the end of the world. You’d always look at them no matter how many times we pass by the flower shop down the street at our old apartment.” 

You step forward. “Atsumu, I don’t -” 

He barrels on. Tears are running down his cheeks now, dripping onto the carpet in front of his feet. 

“I hope they give you hugs and kisses every time they come home from work, especially on your forehead. You love it like that. I hope they remember every special day you share together, and take you on dates every two weeks, and it has to be a surprise, because you love it like that. I hope -” 

He hiccups and sucks in oxygen with difficulty, the grief clogging his trachea. 

“I - I hope they dance to your favourite song with you every day, and they have to let you step on their feet, because you love it like that.”

And it all flashes to his mind, all the times your smile seemed strained, all the times you pulled away from a kiss earlier, all the times you slept with your back to him. 

“I hope - I hope they do all the things I never did. All the things I should have done.” 

He whirls around and makes to walk away, but you clutch his sleeve. 

“Atsumu -”

He turns his face away from you.

“I’m sorry.”

_I’m sorry I made you feel like you weren’t enough. I’m sorry I took too much. I’m sorry there’s nothing left. I’m sorry._

You let go of his sleeve. 

“Goodbye, Atsumu.”

There are pieces of glass on the floor when the waiters clean up. 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr [@haru-senji](haru-senji.tumblr.com)!


End file.
